In northwestern Utah is a seemingly endless desert of salt known to automobile designers, manufacturers, promoters and professional land-speed drivers throughout the world. The Bonneville Salt Flats is the famous white "pavement" where world speed records are set and broken, sometimes by the same driver.
Time after time, drivers who are either bold or just plain daring climb into vehicles that often look more like something out of science fiction than real life. Wearing fireproof suits and crash helmets, they wait for the signal and then, in their finely tuned machines, streak toward breaking a record in the measured mile in efforts to go faster than anyone has ever gone in an automobile.Ever since 1898, when the first automobile speed test was held in France (at which the winner zoomed down the course at 39.23 miles per hour), drivers have been obsessed with breaking records. For nearly a decade, the goal was to break the sound barrier, which requires traveling about 740 miles per hour. A driver who attempted to break the sound barrier at the Salt Flats in September 1979 succeeded later that year on a track in California's Mojave Desert.
A driver might spend years - and a couple of million dollars - pursuing his goal to break a record. Since he usually races before relatively few spectators and receives little publicity, fame is brief should he accomplish his goal.
Why does he race? Perhaps it is for the thrill of the chase after a record, or for the challenge of just seeing if it can be done. Maybe it is to prove a point, to himself or someone else. Or it may be for the same reason given by the proverbial climber who, when asked why he scaled a mountain peak, responded, "Because it was there."
While we may not zoom across the Salt Flats at record-setting speeds or climb mountains that few have successfully scaled, we, at one time or another, may push at the limits that bind us.
Often, the pushing is a positive experience. We set goals and strive to achieve them. We pursue ideals and improve our lives in the process. We stretch, and in stretching, we grow.
But at times we may be well-advised to take some precautions while pushing at our limits. Perhaps the greatest precaution is selecting goals that are worth the time and effort, the energy and sacrifice required to achieve them.
For what should we strive? There are monetary goals; business and educational pursuits; and personal, family and community achievements, among other endeavors. We focus on those that have the most importance to us.
We set priorities when we select our goals. From the scriptures we are given counsel pertaining to those priorities. Jacob, for example, gave this direction: "But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God." (Jacob 2:18.)
Mosiah taught the importance of diligence: "And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order." (Mosiah 4:27.)
The celestial kingdom, we say, is our ultimate goal. But how much time and energy do we spend actively pursuing it? Do we spend even a small portion of the time studying scriptures that we do watching television or movies? Do we expend even half as much energy in serving the needy as we devote to our hobbies? Are we nearly as faithful in going home teaching or visiting teaching as we are in attending our exercise classes or going on daily walks or runs to maintain our physical fitness?
The land-speed driver cannot, even for a split second, allow his attention to be diverted. At 740 miles per hour, his measured mile is clocked in about five seconds; there is no time for distraction.
Is it much different for us in our eternal pursuits? Can we afford to be distracted? Is our time in mortality long enough to permit us to lose sight of our goal?
The driver on the Bonneville Salt Flats, through training and much preparation, actually begins his race for the record long before he even gets to the starting line. Likewise, we already are pursuing our goal. We are approaching the finish line faster than most of us realize. Unlike the driver, we don't know exactly how far off that line is. We cannot calculate speed and distance to determine even approximately when we will reach the finish. But reach it, we definitely will.
And when we do, will we feel a rush of victory, or the pang of failure?